Pete's Write

In the old days, when you wanted a home theatre system, there will be at least 5 speakers, a subwoofer and plenty of cables snaking around the home, plus a host of boxes of Blu Ray, CD players, a radio and more. These days, your TV is smart enough to have all the apps to stream the latest movies and a single HDMI cable to your soundbar will allow you to experience better dialogue and potentially a decent surround experience. But not all soundbars are created equal and just because there is an Atmos sticker on the box does not guarantee a wonderful surround experience. Bose has been rather late into the game of Atmos, having entered earlier with decent efforts like the 300 and 700. These gave a very significant boost to the vocals and dialogue, some left and right directionality and sounded more than half decent for music too. They also had internal streaming options which allowed you to listen to the internet radio and other music streaming options. Then came the 900 and it has bee...

In the past, a stereo system was the staple in every living room. Apart from the sofa, there will be a TV and the radio. If you had space, there will be a multi-deck system, with an equaliser, radio, cassette deck and the amp, flanked by a pair of speakers.  When home theatre became popular, the pair of speakers then became five and more, but things changed, especially when homes became smaller. The soundbar reigned in many domestic settings, but there are some issues with a soundbar. When you take the same budget and divide it up into more channels, the main thing that suffers is sound quality.  However, you may want domestic bliss and keep the two speaker layout minus the cables and multiple boxes, so are there alternatives? And the answer is yes! The powered speaker used to be the preserve of computer users, who use it as alternatives to their built in speakers. It added volume and fidelity. Then someone felt that it was a good idea to use it in a room for music, and KEF ca...